Your list is a great resource for those looking to expand their writing endeavors.

Kristen

Gives me even more incentive to write in detail about how I’m finishing my novel while writing a deadlined novella, editing another novel and juggling writing gigs to pay the bills!

I understand that the votes is only one aspect of the final judging. I just thought it might be illuminating to others to know the counts from your nomination page — which I take as rather encouraging to the newer bloggers. One needn’t muster 100’s of votes to get a full consideration.

And I wish to underscore how much I’ve learned from the contest so far. Not often are they as transparent as this one — and that transparency allows anyone to study the blogs and learn a lot. And my own place in the list isn’t the major concern for me [I’m 68 and well past those concerns] — learning more about the community of bloggers is my prime objective. And your contest has been very helpful.

Tom

Nominations actually ended today. Votes that came in after the 26th will still be factored into the final decision.

Also, there were far more than 54 votes.

One last point, it is not the number of nominations but rather the quality of the blog that will result in the top 10 final winners.

Thanks for your assessment.

Mike

I’d like to congratulate the finalists — well deserved.

Some observations for those of us who missed the cut — lessons for next year:

There are 19 finalists, while 18 failed to get a second nomination in time. There were 54 “votes” in all. The largest vote-getter received 15 nominations, six received 9 or more votes, nine received 4 nominations, with four finalists receiving 2 or 3 votes.

Almost all votes were cast before November 10. LESSON: Get your votes in very early. This year nominations ended a week earlier than the announced deadline of November 30. I learned that lesson the hard way, as my strategy was to wait til the end of the month to marshall my supporters. I’ll be apologizing to my supporters for activating them too late in the game. Watch for me to reappear next year in EARLY November!

Make your call for support in this contest very prominent on your blog. Ten of the finalists called for votes in headlines on their blogs; two more requested votes within the body of a post. As many of the blogs nominated here are written by copywriters and commercially oriented bloggers, this seems like an obvious strategy. My own call for support in mid-November was much too oblique, and required a scramble over Thanksgiving — lesson learned. Many of the finalists have also worked hard to develop a community feeling among their readers. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve carried away from this exercise, and I’m already working to improve in this area.

I look forward to seeing all of you next November for another round. And many of you will be showing up automatically in my Google Reader so I can keep up with your good work.

And best wishes to all the finalists.

Tom